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This book conceptualises the lived experience of intimacy in a world in which the terms and conditions of love and friendship are increasingly unclear. It shows that the analysis of the ´small world´ of dyads can give important clues about society and its gendered makeup.

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Introduction 1. Modernity, Intimacy, and Friendship 2. Friends, Friendship, and Sociology 3. Love, Friendship, and Freedom 4. Friendship, Intimacy, and the Self 5. Gender and the Love-Friendship Paradox 6. The Love-Friendship Paradox and Cross-Sex Friendship Conclusion: Friendship´s Embedded Freedom

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Harry Blatterer is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Macquarie University, Australia. His previous book publications include Coming of Age in Times of Uncertainty (2009), and Modern Privacy: Shifting Boundaries, New Forms (2010), co-edited with Maria Markus and Pauline Johnson.

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